Crime novelist Michael Nava, an openly gay staff attorney for California Supreme Court Justice Carlos
Moreno, has spent the last four years
patiently waiting for an appointment to an appellate court seat. But so far
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
has passed him over each time a vacancy has arisen on San Francisco's 1st
District Court of Appeal.

Now Nava has decided to bypass the appointment process and
seek a judicial post via the ballot box. He pulled papers this month to run for
a seat next year on the San Francisco County Superior Court. He plans to run
for an open seat on the court but does not have to designate which one until
next February.

"I filed the paperwork to begin raising money on
Monday, October 5. At the moment there is one open seat, and I think just from
the gossip mill, there may be a couple of other judges who decide not to run
for re-election," Nava told the Bay Area Reporter
during a phone interview last week. "I would
prefer not to run against a sitting judge but I am not ruling out anything at
the moment. I am keeping all my options open."

Judicial races are usually quiet affairs, and other than
within legal circles, they go largely unnoticed by the voting public. Last year
saw an exception when former Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval
ousted longtime Republican Judge Thomas
Mellon from the city's superior court. The
spirited campaign included lesbian attorney Mary Mallen
and pro-gay campaign fliers targeted at LGBT voters
by the candidates.

Next year's election should also upend the rule. In addition
to Nava's campaign the 2010 ballot will also include the state's chief justice,
Ronald George, and Justice Ming
Chin, who will both be running to retain
their seats on the state's Supreme Court.

Chin is a reliably conservative member of the court who
voted against granting LGBT couples marriage rights, while George has
vacillated from being praised by the LGBT community for authoring the court's
2008 opinion legalizing same-sex marriage to a year later infuriating LGBT
people with his lead role in upholding Proposition 8, the voter-passed same-sex
marriage ban.

More than any other the marriage cases brought to the LGBT
community's attention the importance of the makeup of the state's courts. After
the Supreme Court's 6-1 ruling in May upholding Prop 8, some LGBT activists
said they intended to campaign against George and Chin.

While George has defended the court's decision in the Prop 8
case, he recently lashed out at the state's initiative process, saying in an
October 10 speech before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences that the
ballot box measures have "rendered our state government
dysfunctional." He went on to note that due to last November's election
"chickens gained valuable rights in California on the same day that gay
men and lesbians lost them."

In an essay explaining his decision to run for judge, Nava
writes of the importance of having a diverse judiciary and what impact that has
on court decisions. Should he win his race next fall, Nava said he would be the
superior court's first openly gay person of color.

"Like the judges I have worked for, I would bring to
the bench the perspectives and experience of communities rarely represented in
the black robes of a judge: gay, Latino, immigrant, poor," wrote Nava.
"Judges are called upon every day to make decisions that affect the lives
of poor people, people of color, and all the other outsiders who are more
likely than middle-class people to become entangled in the nets of the law. And
while no judge can decide a case out of sympathy with one of the parties, the
judge who has a personal sense of the complexities of the lives of the people
before him may treat those people with greater respect and be more thoughtful
in reaching his decisions."

Nava, 55, lives in Daly City with his partner, George
Herzog, an oncology nurse at the Veteran's
Administration hospital in San Francisco. Together seven years, the couple
married one year ago this week at a ceremony presided over by Moreno.

There is no residency requirement that a judicial candidate
must reside within the boundaries of the court district on which they are
seeking a seat. Like many homebuyers, Nava said he and his partner were priced
out of San Francisco and opted to buy a house on the Peninsula.

"There is no residency requirement for judges because
they administer state law not local laws. They are state judges,"
explained Nava, who earned his law degree from Stanford in 1981.

Following graduation Nava worked as a deputy city attorney
in Los Angeles before joining the Encino-based law firm Horvitz & Levy
in 1985. Eventually he made his way to San Francisco,
first opening a private practice and then going to work in 1999 for the
California Supreme Court as a senior attorney on the criminal central staff.

He also penned a series of award-winning crime novels
starring gay Latino criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios. The last of the seven
books was published in 2001.

Having worked for Moreno since 2004, Nava decided he had
built up enough experience to seek an appellate court seat and applied in
December 2005. He earned a favorable rating from the state Bar's evaluation
committee but was never interviewed by the governor's judicial appointments
secretary, a key step for being picked to fill a vacancy.

After he was passed over again this past June, Nava said he
finally "concluded it is just not going to happen" as long as the GOP
governor is in office. Since being elected in 2003 Schwarzenegger is known to
have appointed a single openly gay judge – Ron Albers
was tapped this June for a seat on San Francisco's
superior court – though four other picks are said to be closeted judges.

With his 60th birthday fast approaching, Nava said time is
running out for him to realize his dream of becoming a judge. Also spurring his
decision to campaign for a seat is his desire to see a more diverse court.

"I would like a judicial career. I think I would be a
good judge. It is important to have gay judges and Latino judges," he said.
"I am five years from turning sixty, I really feel that I needed to do
this now if it is going to happen."

He is planning several fundraisers for this November and a
campaign Web site at www.navaforjudge.com
should go live today, Thursday, October 15.

Sanctuary city policy debate leads to homophobic phone threat

Last week the Board of Supervisors' Public Safety Committee
passed by a 2-1 vote legislation that would restrict city officials from
reporting illegal immigrant youth who are arrested to federal immigration
authorities until after they are convicted of their crimes. Openly gay
Supervisor David Campos is pushing the
new rule and likened it during the October 5 hearing to civil rights legislation
once pushed by slain gay Supervisor Harvey Milk.

The remark elicited an objection during public comment from Colin
Gallagher, who identified himself as gay
and spoke against Campos's policy proposal.

"I didn't think his words were appropriate,"
Gallagher told the B.A.R., explaining
that he also believes Campos's legislation is "unconstitutional and
unenforceable."

Gallagher also penned a letter to the editor explaining his
opposition that ran in the October 7 San Francisco Examiner. His public objections led an unidentified caller to
leave him a threatening phone message sometime between October 8 and 10.

"It's always yuppie fags like you, yuppies like you,
who are ruining this city," said the male caller in a message left for
Gallagher on his home phone line. "I'm gonna call you every single day on
the hour until you pick up. It's yuppies like you with your fucking ideology
that's ruining the city. Chris Daly is
more of a San Franciscan than anything you can possibly know ... Fucking yuppie
scum is what you are. Pick up the phone, asshole."

Gallagher filed a police report after hearing the message
and is hoping his phone company can track down who made the call. He said he
also plans to change to an unlisted phone number.

"I hope the police department or the phone company can
assist in identifying who the caller is, so I can take appropriate legal
action," said Gallagher, who saved the message and gave a copy of it to
police.

As a Republican whose public denunciation of President George
W. Bush in 2004 provoked no harassing
phone calls, Gallagher said he was surprised his critique of Campos's
legislation elicited such an angry response.

"I would have expected something like that from the
Republicans," he said. "When I went on the news in 2004 to explain
why I wouldn't vote for George Bush and was supporting John Kerry, I didn't get any phone calls."

The full board is supposed to take up the matter at its
October 20 meeting.

Milk Club to decide early D8, D6 endorsements

The field of candidates running to be the next supervisor
from both District 8 and District 6 has yet to be finalized but that isn't
stopping the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club from voting on early endorsements
in both races.

At its meeting Tuesday, October 27 the club will vote on
whether to give early backing to current president Rafael Mandelman
in his bid for the District 8 seat and to former
president Debra Walker, who is
running in District 6. It will also decide whether to give an early nod to Michael
Goldstein, another former Milk Club
president who is running for a seat on the community college board.

The deadline to file in all the contests isn't until next
August, as voters won't decide any of the races until the November 2010
election. But due to all three candidates' strong ties to the Milk Club it is
unfathomable any of the three would not have its support in their perspective
races.

The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at the Women's Building on 18th
Street near Mission.

Web Extra: For more queer political news, be sure to check http://www.ebar.com Monday mornings around 10
a.m. for Political Notes, the notebook's online companion. This week's column
catches up with former gay Vallejo mayor-for-a-week Gary Cloutier.